Cardiomyocyte electromechanical stimulation platform (CESP)
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
Developing robust biological models for accurately studying the physiology and behavior of the human heart has been a decades-long challenge in the field of tissue engineering. The lack of a reliable, accurate, and reproducible platform for analyzing the responses of human cardiac muscle to external stimuli has likely impeded the rate of biological discoveries and blurred the consistency of data across studies. To address the limitations of static 2D culture models, researchers have developed advanced 2D models using human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived cardiomyocytes, capable of providing electrical or mechanical stimulation. However, these models lack synchronous integration of these two important modes of stimuli with interdependent timing. The goal of this project was to develop, verify, and biologically characterize the Cardiomyocyte Electromechanical Stimulation Platform (CESP) capable of the integrated electrical pacing and mechanical stretching of 2D monolayers of hiPSC-cardiomyocytes in vitro. The platform provides the ability to run different electromechanical stimulation programs that recapitulate physiological and pathological cardiac behavior with the throughput needed to extract meaningful biological measurables to analyze transcriptional and morphological changes to stimuli.
Description
2026